layaway

This poem is about half-hearted romantic relationships. The idea of "love" is on hold until you figure out who you are, what you want, how to forgive yourself for not knowing then what you know now, and essentially loving yourself unconditionally. The idea is that once you learn to love yourself, only then can you know what love looks like from other people in a form that is acceptable to you.

Layaway

Don’t go looking for love in the wrong places.

Don’t go looking for the next man to lay with.

Don’t go swinging your head from left to right;

Don’t bask in lawlessness in spirit of a contrite

conscience caged in clarity. Don’t go claiming there’s a disparity

between your logic and your desire;

fulling knowing that the universe simply does not conspire

against lost souls,

but rather protects against futile trolls.

It goes to show how desperately you’ve wanted love;

how dangerously you’ve wanted to rise above

Any hate that has crossed your pathway

that has got you heated and caused dismay.

Don’t go acting surprised that showers cool you down.

Don’t go looking for more reasons to drown

as if the remedy isn’t tucked on your kitchen counter.

Can you create a concoction sounder

than the comfort that is mint leaves, ginger and honey?

It is a trinity that dives humbly.

So, you let your lips guide that tea that sits comfortably

behind those clay walls. Release and let the water fall.

Your languid flesh is earthly.

Your bodily language flows effervescently.

Turn those tears to tea and engulf them quietly;

the ode as a requiem to confusion.

This longing for love is not a delusion.

Your repulsion is infatuation.

Your inception is not a repository for estranged interactions.

But, do you remember when the play-doh was enough?

Do you remember when falls off your scooter made you tough?

Validation is a detox in the confinements of your paranoia-

Craving to seep through your pores.

That tea is of great comfort, you see,

and you more than deserve to be happy.

Don’t go asking for mediocre seconds.

Don’t go answering any beckons.

Don’t go bowing your head and slapping your hands into your face.

Don’t go thinking that you’re a disgrace

because you didn’t know the difference between won and one,

ergo, your hummingbird has left unsung

because the earth was sinking his song.

He thought that he did not belong

in a space that had mudded.

He left unconfronted.

Had he stayed, he would have suffocated.

Why had you not communicated that your love is on layaway?

How could you have expected him to stay under your terms and conditions?

They are contradictory and has left many suspicions

as to what and with whom you are truly comfortable.

Don’t go looking for love if you yourself are incalculable.